Petrarca’s Ethical
Humanism 1345-53
Petrarca continued to live at Vaucluse, and in 1346 he began writing his
Solitary Life and Bucolicum Carmen. He contrasted solitude to urban living and
gave examples of famous men and women who preferred solitude. Petrarca also
valued friendship and wrote that he would rather be deprived of solitude than a
friend. He did not impose his values on others, and the independence of thought
he claimed for himself he did not deny to others. The first four eclogues of
the Bucolicum Carmen discuss how his brother Gherardo’s life differs from his,
the death of King Robert of Naples, his love for Laura and coronation, and his
poetic work. The fifth eclogue is about Cola di Rienzo, and the sixth and
seventh denounce the corruption of the papal court at Avignon. The eighth
justifies his leaving Cardinal Colonna to return to Italy. He also wrote three
sonnets on the “Babylonian captivity” of the papacy. Yet Pope Clement VI
offered to make Petrarca his secretary or a bishop, but the poet declined to
sacrifice his freedom to study and write.
Petrarca visited his brother Gherardo at the Montrieux monastery in 1347
and was inspired to write On Monastic Freedom (De otio religioso) on the
Biblical injunction in the 46th Psalm, “Be still, and know that I am God.” The
treatise discusses how to be liberated from the devil, the world, and the
flesh. It is dedicated to the monks of Montrieux; but Petrarca admitted that he
wrote it more for his own benefit than theirs.
Petrarca had begun writing his Secretum (My Secret Book) in 1342, and he
completed it about 1347. In the introduction he explained that he did not write
it for others and glory, but only so that he could remember the conversation.
No copy of the book was made during his lifetime. Thinking about his death, he
thought he saw a woman, and talking with her, he identified her as Truth. As
she entered his inmost solitude, he noticed the priestly Augustine.
After this introduction the book consists of three dialogs between
Francesco and Augustine. In the first Augustine asks him if he has forgotten
that he is mortal, and he recommends being conscious of our own unhappiness and
meditating constantly on death. Augustine argues that anyone who recognizes
one’s unhappiness and wants to be happy can be so. However, the foolish try to
gain happiness with the chains of earthly pleasures. He should study and work
for his own improvement, not to impress others. No one can be made unhappy
except by one’s own fault.
Francesco is concerned that he will not be able to free himself from his
own faults. Augustine warns him that people esteem themselves more highly than
others and thus deceive themselves. Francesco realizes that the root of his
unhappiness is in his will. Augustine reflects that he did not change himself
until deep meditation helped him see his unhappiness. He advises the poet to
consult his conscience to interpret virtue and judge deeds and thoughts in
order to strengthen his faith. The desire for virtue is a large portion of
virtue. This desire can only function fully when all other desires are ended.
By being conscious of mortality one can despise transient things and aspire to
a life of reason. When the soul leaves its body, it is presented for judgment
on every deed and word in one’s life. If one truly desires to be better, one
may be confident that God will rescue you. Francesco asks his mentor what is
holding him back. Augustine quotes Virgil that conflicts arise and produce
fear, desire, grief, and joy. Cicero advises, “The superior intellect moves
away from the senses and abstracts its thoughts from everyday matters.” Augustine
tells Petrarca that his mind is distracted by various obsessions.
In the second dialog of Secretum Augustine warns Francesco that despair
is the worst evil. He observes that Francesco is proud of his intellect, the
books he has read, his eloquence, and the beauty of his body which will die.
When Francesco asks what leads him astray, the saint replies that it is his
desire for worldly things. Augustine encourages him to endure poverty and
recommends the middle way between wealth and poverty. He refers to the proverb
that the covetous person is always in need. He should limit his desires. When
he overcomes his passions and is wholly under the sway of virtue, then he will
be free. Francesco admits that he suffers from depression, and Augustine asks
him what is its cause. Petrarca sees many causes, especially his contempt for
the human condition. He contrasts the sight of miserable beggars to the
absurdities of the voluptuous rich. Augustine warns him that anger is the worst
mental disturbance but advises him that it can be controlled by reason. He must
learn to calm the tumult in his own heart to obtain a peaceful mind.
In the third dialogue Augustine describes Petrarca’s greatest problems
as his passionate love for Laura and his desire for worldly glory. She has
distracted him from the love of God to a creature. Francesco realizes that his
deviation from the right path began when he met Laura in 1327. Again Augustine
counsels him that the love of earthly things causes one to neglect the love of
God. He recommends that he live in Italy but avoid solitude until he is cured
of his illness. Cicero advised that satiety, shame, and reflection can help one
take one’s mind off love. The saint advises him to put away childish things and
the desires of youth. In regard to glory the desire for vain immortality may
block his way to true immortality. Augustine believes he is wasting his life
writing his Africa and other poetry when death may snatch him before he completes
them. Instead of striving for glory, he should be working to be worthy. By
making the true end of life one’s goal and by aiming at worth, true glory will
follow. Worldly ambitions are not worth the name of glory. The whole life of a
philosopher should be meditating on death. Finally, Francesco expresses
gratitude for the understanding he has gained, and he thanks Truth for helping
them to see. Francesco asks Augustine not to desert him. The two voices in this
dialog represent two sides of the author Petrarca. Augustine may be considered
his higher, spiritual self while Francesco represents his conscious self making
decisions in the world.
In his “Letter to Posterity” Petrarca described his life up to about
1351. In this letter he also mentioned that he disliked the dishonesty in the
legal profession and so could not practice it. He admitted that he was deluded
as a young man and went astray as an adult before his experience convinced him
of the truth and helped him to correct his life. He did not strive for riches
because he did not want the worries and effort that is involved in achieving
and maintaining wealth. He always felt contempt for wealth and hated the
anxiety it demanded; so he practiced plain living and ordinary fare. At the age
of forty he renounced carnal relationships with women, thanking God for the
liberation while he was still strong and healthy. He admitted that he has known
and been honored by great princes who gave him advantages. He believed he had a
well balanced intellect rather than a sharp one and that he was most inclined
to moral philosophy and the art of poetry. He concentrated mostly on the
knowledge of antiquity and disliked his own age, except for the affection of
his friends.
Petrarca had become friends with the flamboyant Cola di Rienzo in 1343
when Cola spent several months in Avignon on a diplomatic mission. When the
demagogic Cola di Rienzo became tribune of Rome in 1347, he expelled
aristocratic families and declared a Roman republic with himself as ruler.
Petrarca wrote Cola several letters urging him to unite Italy, return the
papacy to Rome, and bring peace to the region; but Cola’s attack with militia
that killed Stefano Colonna the Younger and his son alienated Petrarca from
Cardinal Colonna. On November 29 he wrote to Cola, complaining that he favored
the basest faction and pleading that he not destroy his own work. After Cola
was arrested, Petrarca wrote a letter to the Roman people urging them to
intervene; he complained that the magistrates denied Cola legal counsel, though
this was the common practice of the Inquisition. Concern over German
mercenaries and the hired soldiers called condottieri and the violent
calamities in Italy stimulated Petrarca to write a canzoni called “My Italy,”
which he concluded as follows:
“My song, be humble, for you are
addressed to haughty folk,
ever hostile to the truth.
Speak then to those few high hearts
that love virtue.
Say to them: “Who gives me strength
to speak,
as I go crying: ‘Peace! Peace!
Peace!’”
Conditions were so violent in Italy that when Petrarca first visited
Rome, his friends provided an escort of a hundred horsemen to protect him from
the Orsini family.
In 1348 Petrarca survived a major earthquake and the Black Death which
took his beloved Laura. He became a friend of Padua’s ruler Jacopo II da
Carrara and visited him in 1349. Jacopo procured a canonry for Petrarca in
Padua. From this time on Petrarca always hired at least one copyist to make
transcripts of valuable manuscripts. He became archdeacon in Padua on June 20,
1350 and immediately left to visit Mantua. In October of that year Petrarca
visited Boccaccio for the first time in Florence as he made the pilgrimage to
Rome during the Jubilee. He also met the eminent scholar and lawyer, Lapo da
Castiglionchio, who sent him many manuscripts by Cicero including the
Philippics. Lapo was given a manuscript of the last thirteen books of
Petrarca’s Familiar Letters which survived with his notes. Petrarca visited his
birthplace at Arezzo in December, and Lapo sent him a copy of the newly
discovered Institutions by Quintilian. Petrarca was so impressed that he wrote
a letter of appreciation to the dead author.
In April 1351 Boccaccio came to Padua and gave Petrarca a letter from
the priors of Florence revoking the banishment of his father’s family and
restoring the confiscated property. They invited him to teach in Florence, but
after the death of Jacopo da Carrara, Petrarca returned to Vaucluse in the
summer of 1351. In November he wrote a letter to a commission of four cardinals
appointed to resolve problems in Rome in which he recommended that the rival
Colonna and Orsini families both be excluded from the city government and that
the Roman Senate be limited to Roman citizens. However, the commission was
ineffective.
Petrarca spent much of his life studying and writing at his retreat in
Vaucluse near Avignon, and even this place was once plundered and burned.
Starting in 1350, Petrarca began writing letters to persuade Holy Roman Emperor
Karl IV of Bohemia to come to Rome to be crowned, and Karl finally did so in
1354; but he soon left. Like Dante, Petrarca hoped that one head could
establish peace and order in Italy. Prior to the war between Genoa and Venice,
in March 1351 Petrarca had sent exhortations for peace to the doges of both
cities, explaining to himself, “I thought myself blameworthy if, in the midst
of warlike preparations, I should not have recourse to my one weapon, the pen.”
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